Another day, another ‘Am I The Asshole?’ (AITA) reddit thread, but this one’s got us genuinely scratching our heads over who’s in the wrong.
In the thread, which has nearly 6,000 comments under it, the original poster, a parent of two grown-up children, wants to know if he’s the asshole after his son was left feeling ‘hurt’ by a major disparity between the Christmas presents he and his sister received.
To provide background, OP explains that his daughter, aged 26, had recently bought her first home and as such he and his wife had given her $4,000 cash for Christmas, ‘because we had experience being new homeowners and knowing that something always breaks in that first six months and it's always expensive.’
Their 22-year-old son, however, received personal gifts ‘totalling somewhere around $800, which is where the resentment sprang up.
‘We explained that the gifts we got him were tailored to his interests, but his sister has just passed a big life milestone where money is more important to her right now than sentiment,’ explains OP. ‘He said it's still hurtful because it feels like we aremore proud of her than him.’
He went on, ‘My wife got really frustrated when he said that and asked why he would choose the least charitable interpretation of our actions. He said that's just how he felt and he couldn't control it.’
The disagreement escalated to the point where OP has turned to faceless internet strangers for their opinion, but if he wanted reassurance he wasn’t about to get it, with most of the top-rated comments deciding that the parents were at fault.
‘Of course, they don't want their son to express his feelings unless he's being always grateful and compliments them,’ wrote one. ‘If he has something slightly negative to say he's an ungrateful spoiled brat, at least in his mother's eyes.’
Another pointed out, ‘If you can afford it, giving a gift of $X is a really nice thing for parents to do for first time home-owners. It's really generous. BUT, it needs to be kept separate from Christmas. Giving one kid 5 times the value of gifts compared to the other is sh!tty. Minimizing the least favoured child's feelings about it is super sh!tty.’
Still, if you’re receiving nearly a grand in prezzies from your parents at Christmas as an adult – while still living at home rent-free, but that’s besides the point – you’re not exactly hard-done by. You could argue their son should, at 22, be mature enough to understand that different life stages come with different monetary requirements. Also, given OP and his wife are evidently extremely generous parents they are surely intending on doing the same for him when the time comes to buy his first property (something OP confirmed in follow-up posts).
After a very expensive Christmas, it’s understandable that OP's wife should feel frustrated. While giving their daughter the extra money secretly might have been an option, they’re under no obligation to tiptoe around their son. It’s their money, after all.
One thing we can all agree on? There's a reason they say money is the root of all evil...